Exhibitions ( 67 )

The Tokyo Subway is immense. Ignoring all the train lines, suburban links, etc. it is over 300km. Everything about it is dizzying, the scale, complexity, signage. You can travel for hours (without purpose…) and never get bored. It’s easy to focus on the overwhelming crush of humanity that makes use of this system, but the system itself is equally worthy of attention. Despite Tokyo’s image as a “future metropolis” much of the system is showing it’s age. Where the old and new meet it can be jarring: changing from an old to a new line can mean going from aging yellow tile, to sleek white panelling.

“Underwater logging in Panama” is a work that took Arnaud De Grave almost all 2013 to complete. A first shooting session of about 15 days in March to get the first batch of pictures, then another session in October to set up the resulting exhibition (at the Alliance Française du Panama) and shoot some more pictures. Here is presented this exhibition.

Benoit Capponi is Arnaud Thurel’s guest. His long-term work about World War I is showed in a BOP-exclusive exhibition. It relates to the deep research work Capponi has done based on some letters from the “poilus” ( French World War I infantryman, literally: “hairy one”.) and topographic studies of war field. This certainly is an impressive piece of work.

… This set which is not really a set provides, by an large, a glimpse of what my humble self has been stacking up over the years. Not wanting to have to put photography on hold due to a temporary lack of funds, I began to soup my films in instant coffee a while ago and have been addicted to Caffenol ever since…

The shaman starts the ceremony by some prayers, these have a soft and mysterious tone. The main room of the house is filled with his deep and low voice for twenty minutes. When silence is back, he unrolls a thin cotton rope and deploy it from his hands to the hands of the soon to be married couple and their two witnesses. Once the five of them are linked, an additional thin rope is installed between the two heads of the couple; the ceremony can begin.

This series is the sequel of the “Lost Places” exhibition that was presented two years ago. Having waved in many abandoned places, I ended up with this new material, this time focusing on people I met in these areas. Beside is a text written by Yannick Vigouroux, sociologist and photography historian, about my work.

About Bop

BOP name originated in French, it could be translated as: “wave and particle craft”.BOP is an association whose goal is to promote film photography. It offers each member virtual space for their online portfolio and also aims at organizing collective paper exhibitions and publishing booklets. All BOP members are passionate photographers who aim at achieving high standards for each picture together with artistic coherency in their exhibitions.